We had a snow storm last night. Not a record storm, not even close. It started in the evening, and began to snow heavily in the late night. One of those storms that when you woke up during the night, you pulled back the curtains and checked the progress. Magical. Then, in the morning, there was a new, fresh, deep blanket that covered the old dirty snow, and all the foot prints. A clean slate.
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| A fresh snow. At dusk. |
When I went out to shovel, the snow was still falling. Silent and straight down. No wind, and only the occasional muffled sound in the distance. Very peaceful. Later in the day, the wind would increase and colder air would blow in, typical in New York snow storms. Plows would push the snow, and traffic would increase. But for now, it was quiet and beautiful.
For some reason, this storm caused a wave of nostalgia to hit me. It reminded me of snowfalls that hit when I was a youth. We seemed to have many of them, and we always took advantage of the fun and adventure that they provided, We sometimes would go hiking though the nearby forests and glens in deep snow, but more often, we would go sledding.
Our neighborhood was perched on the side of a hill. Lousy for bike riding, but excellent for sledding. Sometimes, an impromptu block party would break out and we would all just sled down the street. In later years, a long sledding trail was built. I do not know who did so, but it was there. It started in a backyard at the top of the hill, went down what was almost a ski jump, and directly into a pine forest. After that, it wound in an out of fields and forests, finally ending in a broad field in the valley. Parts were ridiculously steep, there were some difficult sliding turns, and sections of gentle slope that took skill to keep your speed up. I remember researching the trail on topographic maps and the total drop was around 400 feet. It took something like 45 minutes to pull your sled back to the top. Most of those short winter days there was only a couple of runs before it got dark.
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| Katia prefers to stay in by the fire. |
I often think of one particular day. I was alone on the trail. I trudged to the beginning with my Flexible Flyer (my parents house was near the top end), put down my sled, and took off. We always sledded on our stomach. The trail was too fast for sitting up. It was snowing, not enough to slow me down, but enough to help me steer. I never timed myself but this felt like a record run. I leaned into turns, dug the toes of my boots in to help me steer and slow down. I flew down the final slope and drifted across the flat field at the bottom letting my speed bleed off as a slid to a stop. I rolled over, and looked up into the snowflakes silent drifting down on to my face. Silence. Peace.
I finally got up and looked around. Dusk had hit, and it was snowing harder. Street lights were on in the distance. Cars moved silently on the highway pushing pools of light ahead. Countless beautiful snowflakes drifted by, surrounding me. I had a long, cold climb home. I didn't care. In fact, I loved it.
